JIU702: DBA Faculty Training

Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods

Adapted from Patton (2002) Chapter 3, pp. 132-133

Variety in Qualitative Inquiry: Theoretical Traditions

Perspective Ethnography Autoethnography Disciplinary Roots Anthropology Literary arts Central Questions What is the culture of this group of people? How does my own experience of this culture connect with and offer insights about this culture, situation, event, and/or way of life? What's really going on in the real world? What can we establish with some degree of certainty? What are plausible explanations for verifiable patterns? What's the truth insofar as we can get at it? How can we study a phenomenon so that our findings correspond, as much as possible, to the real world? How have the people in this setting constructed reality? What are their reported perceptions, truths" explanations, beliefs, and worldview? What are the consequences of their constructions for their behaviors and for those with whom they interact? What is the meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience of this phenomenon for this person or group of people? What is my experience of this phenomenon and the essential experience of others who also experience this phenomenon intensely? How do people make sense of their everyday activities so as to behave in socially acceptable ways? What common set of symbols and understandings has emerged to give meaning to people's interactions? How do signs (words, symbols) carry and convey meaning in particular contexts?

Reality testing, Positivist and realist approaches, Analytic induction approaches

Philosophy

Constructionism, constructivism

Sociology

Phenomenology

Philosophy

Heuristic inquiry

Humanistic psychology Sociology

Ethnomethodology

Symbolic interaction

Social Psychology

Semiotics

Linguistics

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JIU702: DBA Faculty Training

Hermeneutics

Linguistics philosophy, literary criticism, theology Social sciences (interpretive), Literary criticism, literary nonfiction

What are the conditions under which a human act took place or a product was produced that makes it possible to interpret its meanings? What does this narrative or story reveal about the person and world from which it came? How can this narrative be interpreted to understand and illuminate the life and culture that created it? How do individuals attempt to accomplish their goals through specific behaviors in specific environments? How and why does this system as a whole function as it does? What is the underlying order, if any, of disorderly phenomenon? What theory emerges from systematic comparative analysis and is grounded in fieldwork so as to explain what has been and is observed? How is X perspective manifest in this phenomenon?

Narratology, Narrative analysis

Ecological psychology

Ecology, psychology

Systems theory Chaos theory, Nonlinear dynamics (chaos) Grounded theory

Interdisciplinary Theoretical physics, natural sciences Social sciences, methodology

Orientational, Feminist inquiry, critical theory, queer theory, among others

Ideologies: political, cultural, and economic

Reference
Patton, M. Q. (2003). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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